The Woman in Oil Fields by Tracy Daugherty

dishes, carefully piled their napkins by their plates. Later, the waiter passed the table and, with a mighty sweep of his arm, knocked most of the paper into the street; it swirled with unruly pigeons high above a nearby cathedral, dipped and dodged between black cabs with the madness of confetti at a wedding. Few gestures he has seen in this world have delighted him as much.
    After a bowl of his four-alarm chili he sets about, once more, the messy business of the planet: a piece for the op-ed page of the Times , which is running this month a series of guest columns by artists discussing their personal political fears. Which of the poisons to choose? The public seems tired, just now, of the large, perennial topics (refugees, famine). Contributions to national aid agencies declined last quarter. As every parent knows, at a certain point in the lesson the child shuts down and doesn’t hear another word. He picks an old standby, an ongoing scandal but one that hasn’t been in the news much lately-questionable payments by the aerospace industry to several U.S. senators. A call to action, effective education – the kind that gets results – is always a matter of timing. Success is fleeting. The issue is jacklighted then lost until some worried person at four A.M. notices nothing’s changed.
    He remembers his son, years ago, learning to ride a bike. One day, perfect execution; cries and crashes the next. Teaching is a hopeless process, full of hope. He believes in it, though often it leads only to sleepless dawns.
    ______
    He walks to the market, he walks to museums. Like the great flaneurs of history – Baudelaire, Breton, Cornell – he is a connoisseur of the merveilleux in the ordinary. He understands that Broadway, Lexington, Fifth, in the swift march of their trades, are rich sites of libidinal possibility. He is simultaneously excited and terrified in a crowd, sprouting desire, tendrils of lust in all directions – that pushy redhead wrestling the Scribners’ sacks, those slender brunettes in the cab – but the poor flesh can only hold so much, his heart will explode, so he dips into a neighborhood bar for refreshment and rest.
    In the leather seat trimmed with warm applewood, he recalls three lines from the published excerpts of Joseph Cornell’s diary: “Into the city … the buoyant feeling aroused by the buildings in their quiet uptown setting … an abstract feeling of geography and voyaging ….”
    He downs his friendly drink then sets out again, past glum storefront mannequins, handshakes and shouts, paupers and dog shit and mint. Mint? Yes, a faint whiff from somewhere, around the corner, beyond the tail-exhaust of that speeding pizza truck. A miracle in a flux of commodities.
    Was it Wittgenstein who spoke of the senses as ghosts in the night, glowing with weak whitish light? The city always strikes him this way, even in the flush of day. A sourceless luminous spirit, ever-moving, warping and woofing with his own inner needs.
    A sculpture show at the MOMA. Giacometti’s Palace at Four A.M ., crude yet elegant spires suggesting an empty castle where the king paces alone. Giacometti had in mind, while fashioning this piece, a lost lover, or so the story goes. In the museum’s spiffy restaurant, still riding the artist’s shapes in his mind, he recalls a recent phone talk with his son down in Texas. “Hey Dad, hired any topless canvas-stretchers yet?” Robert is grown now, married. A painter, like his father. I tried to talk him out of it. I was a light-handed monarch, with simple expectations .
    â€œNo. My cock dropped off at Lent.”
    â€œSeriously, Dad, are you dating? You’re not too old.”
    â€œThank you very much. Now if you’ll excuse me I have to get my ankles realigned. Past a certain age, you know, they slip –”
    â€œI’m sorry. I just thought you’d want to get out. Any more pains in the